


Gods No More

by melancholic (Ecstasy13)



Series: Impossible Gods [2]
Category: Homestuck
Genre: Alternate Universe - Gods & Goddesses, Multi, Polyamory, Post-Sburb/Sgrub, Sadstuck, Self-Hatred
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-07-01
Updated: 2015-07-01
Packaged: 2018-04-07 03:08:04
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,348
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4247070
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ecstasy13/pseuds/melancholic
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Together you dream of a time when Gods were no more real than fairytales, and nightmares didn't walk on two legs and call themselves Gods and share a face with you, exactly like you.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Gods No More

**Author's Note:**

> I know this doesn't make much sense, but I wrote it so goddammit, I'm gonna post it. This is basically the sequel to Gods in the Flesh, but they don't really fit together so they don't necessarily have to be from the same story or the same universe or anything. I just wanted to post this.

It feels altogether too much like you're back in Sburb.

Thankfully, there's no Bec Noir on your heels, no Lord English looming on the horizon like a great green cloud, but you're still running. It's too much to go into the sleaziest of shops, now, because even if nobody causes a scene or calls the police or the paparazzi or the government, you can never escape without someone throwing themselves at your feet, begging for your forgiveness and your blessing and whatever else you're supposed to give now that you're Gods.

It's really scary, when you stop and think about it, because the only reason any of you have these powers is because you managed to outsmart the universe's most fucked-up video game, a Game you started when you were thirteen. You're not even twenty-five yet, technically, and yet all of you—even Jade and John and Rose who can't feel, move, breathe time like you—have lived lifetimes longer than anyone still walking your new Earth. You feel as old as the Condesce, eternally stagnant for thousands upon thousands of lonely sweeps, and as inept as the children you were when you entered the Game.

John tries his best, kisses babies and forgives sins, Breathes onto foreheads in a way that ensures their future and their freedom, even while scrounging water bottles and snacks from dumpsters, but you share too many wet-shouldered hugs for you not to know that this is killing him. It's killing you, too, to see him like this, and you can't help but wish you could both stay dead. Maybe then John could be free from all the insincerity, all the theatrics that come with being a God and not knowing _what the fuck you're doing_.

Sometimes he says he misses Karkat, and you break a little more each time he does.

Other times, when he's less swamped by the feeling of incompetence and doesn't need rage to pull him back into himself, he allows you to pull him close, ignore the heartbroken, accusatory glares of those kneeling at his feet, kiss his knuckles and say, "John, you need to stop."

Rose is another story altogether. She hides away from the light, rejects the only thing the Game gave her, refuses to believe that _this_ is all they'll get, that _this_ is all that a God can be. She barters with the Horrorterrors, whose lifespans extend far beyond Sburb's paltry reaches, and you know better than to interfere because this is Rose's way of coping. When she crawls into your pile at night, her skin bubbles against Jade's and her hands slip ice-cold beneath your shirt, but she's alive, and that's all that matters anymore.

You try to ignore it, but the papers all talk about her, like she's some sort of festering darkness tearing you apart, like she's some sort of _Tumor_ , both explosive and cancerous. Your hands shake whenever anyone speaks against her, your hands reach for your sword and your vision goes bloody, bloody red, and it's only her hand on your arm that holds you back from protecting what's yours.

Sometimes she and Jade lay you down and force you to sleep, whisking your shades away to places unknown so they know you actually sleep and that you don't just stay awake like you do _all the damn time_. 24 hours a day, seven days a week, time keeps tick-tick-ticking as it slides through your fingers but every painful millisecond is worth it if you don't have to sleep, don't have to see them die again.

You manage to avoid everything for a while, live in blessed peace, until one day you're caught in a swarm of flashing cameras and raised voices. Shit, how did they even find you? One second you're all slouching in an old dumpster, hiding from the lives you once saved and badly convincing yourself you're not praying for death (but which Gods would answer your prayers? Who in all the universes is powerful enough to bring you down when the three most powerful people in existence are curled under your arms like wet cats); the next, the cover is being thrown open and you're assaulted with people shouting, "Mr. Strider, tell us about your powers!" and "Jade, are you really a wolf?"

You hate talking to them, of course you hate it, but there's no way to escape and you're all cornered unless you want to use your powers again, which only help to remind you of just how _inhuman_ you are, now. Rose quietly reasons that maybe you should leave, get out of there, run before they can capture your images again and alert the entire world to where you are, but it's too late, and the slightest moment of reprieve you'd found together at the bottom of the barrel is gone.

It sets you all on edge, and John's back to being a God of blessings and benevolence, only there's no escape this time because the cameras follow him every second of every day, and Rose is being given a wide berth because even from afar the paparazzi can tell she's darker than the rest of you. You hide behind your shades—not because you're scared, you tell yourself, but because every Knight needs their shield. Jade has only you to hide behind, though, and you can tell she has it the worst.

From the start, she'd been the most rough-and-tumble of you all, but her wolfishness only increased as the Game passed. The arrival into your universe did nothing to remove that, or the snowy white ears that sit atop her head, and you can tell she's agitated, she needs to run, to be free, because her ears are twitching nonstop. The camera flashes blind her like the brightness of Skaia, and the crowds that follow you everywhere, to the most run-down dumpsters or most rat infested alleyways of the city, make her feel like she's back to leading an army of consorts, eternally fleeing from Bec Noir. She tells you this from through Rose's hair or under John's arm, whenever you all get a chance to catch your breath in the open air.

Jade finally snaps when a photographer reaches out to touch one of her ears. _Bad move, bad move_ , every single one of your instincts scream, but you do nothing to slow time and prevent her from taking a bloody bite out of the man's hand. The crowd backs up, to where the alley is no longer a dark pit, and you say to John, "Perhaps we could use our powers. Just this once." He nods and grabs Jade's hand, not at all frightened, and the next instant they've folded into a pocket of space and vanished.

Rose stands up, casting an ominous shadow over the crowd, and you can feel time moving like an involuntary muscle, slowing until you and Rose are the only ones who can move, speak, breathe in your vicinity. In the entire world?

"Dearest brother, I do believe I'm getting tired of all this frivolity," Rose says, holding out her elbow like a respectable member of the French aristocracy. You take it, one hand on your sword, and lead her between the grotesque living statues that you could kill at any moment just by stopping the tick-tick-tick of their cold hearts and starting the cruel decay of their fleshy bodies.

Your feet leave black prints in the pavement, all too heavy a reminder that you're not Gods, you're just poison, toxic, not right for this world. But beyond the crowd, far away, are John and Jade, waiting for you and Rose to join their sticky embrace. When you finally reach them, wanderers in your dark, timeless world, you fall into their embraces like they're the swords that will finally take your lives. The moon hangs bright overhead, and together you all dream of a time when Gods were no more real than fairytales, and nightmares didn't walk on two legs and call themselves Gods and share a face with you, exactly like you.


End file.
